Tag - Category theory

Jon Woolf: Heart fans as universal phase diagrams

The heart fan is a new convex-geometric invariant of an abelian category which captures interesting aspects of the related homological algebra. I will review the construction and some of its key properties, illustrating them through examples. In particular, I will explain how the heart fan can be viewed as a 'universal phase diagram' for Bridgeland stability conditions with the given heart.

Vladimir Sosnilo: Resolutions of c-categories

Many results about schemes can be generalized to the non-commutative setting of stable ∞-categories. For bounded weighted categories, things are even better: one can formulate and prove a natural analogue of the theorem of Dundas-Goodwillie-McCarthy which is one of the fundamental tools in studying algebraic K-theory. However, in algebraic geometry bounded weighted categories do not show up very often: for instance, the ∞-category of perfect complexes over a scheme X only admits a reasonable weight structure when X is affine. We introduce a new notion of a c-category which is designed to cover a diverse class of geometric examples, including all quasi-compact quasi-separated schemes, yet allowing for all the weighted arguments to work out in this setting. Our main result shows that a c-category can be resolved in finitely many steps by categories of perfect complexes over connective ring spectra. This allows us to prove an analogue of the DGM theorem for c-categories, as well as the vanishing of their Hochschild homology below a certain degree. We also show that either of the following admits a structure of a c-category:

1. the derived category of any exact (∞-)category that has finite Ext-dimension;

2. the subcategory of compact objects in any weakly approximable stable ∞-category in the sense of Neeman.

In particular, using the computation of the Hochschild homology for c-categories mentioned before we obtain that the category of module-spectra over the ring C*(𝕊2) of cochains over the 2-sphere is not weakly approximable.

Emanuele Macrì: Deformations of t-structures

Bridgeland stability conditions were introduced about 20 years ago, with motivations from algebraic geometry, representation theory, and physics. One of the fundamental problems is that we currently lack methods to construct and study such stability conditions in full generality. In this talk, I will present a new technique to construct stability conditions by deformations, based on joint works with Li, Perry, Stellari, and Zhao. As an application, we can construct stability conditions on very general abelian varieties and deformations of Hilbert schemes of points on K3 surfaces, and we prove a conjecture by Kuznetsov and Shinder on quartic double solids.

David Jorgensen: Asymptotic vanishing of cohomology in triangulated categories

Given a graded-commutative ring acting centrally on a triangulated category, the main result of this talk shows that if the cohomology of a pair of objects of the triangulated category is finitely generated over the ring acting centrally, then the asymptotic vanishing of the cohomology is well-behaved. In particular, enough consecutive asymptotic vanishing of cohomology implies all eventual vanishing. Several key applications are also given.

Martin Frankland: Toda brackets in n-angulated categories

Geiss, Keller, and Oppermann introduced n-angulated categories to capture the structure found in certain cluster tilting subcategories in quiver representation theory. Jasso and Muro investigated Toda brackets and Massey products in such cluster tilting subcategories by using the ambient triangulated category. In joint work with Sebastian Martensen and Marius Thaule, we introduce Toda brackets in n-angulated categories, generalizing Toda brackets in triangulated categories (the case n = 3). We will look at different constructions of the brackets, their properties, some examples, and some applications.

Janina Letz: Generation time for biexact functors and Koszul objects in triangulated categories

One way to study triangulated categories is through finite building. An object X finitely builds an object Y, if Y can be obtained from X by taking cones, suspensions and retracts. The X-level measures the number of cones required in this process; this can be thought of as the generation time. I will explain the behaviour of level with respect to tensor products and other biexact functors for enhanced triangulated categories. I will further present applications to the level of Koszul objects.

Bertrand Toën: Geometric quantization for shifted symplectic structures

The purpose of this talk is to present an ongoing work on geometric quantization in the setting of shifted symplectic structures. I will start by recalling the various notions involved as well as the results previously obtained by James Wallbridge, who constructed the prequantized (higher) categories of a given integral shifted symplectic structure. I will then explain our main result so far: the construction of the shifted analogues of the Kostant–Souriau prequantum operators, which will be realized as a "Poisson module over a Poisson category" (a categorification of the notion of a Poisson module over a Poisson algebra). This will be obtained by means of deformation theory arguments for categories of sheaves in the setting of (derived) differential geometry. If time permits, I will discuss further aspects associated to the notion of polarizations of shifted symplectic structures.

Kent Vashaw: A Chinese remainder theorem and Carlson theorem for monoidal triangulated categories

Carlson's connectedness theorem for cohomological support varieties is a fundamental result which states that the support variety for an indecomposable module of a finite group is connected. In this talk, we will discuss a generalization, where it is proved that the Balmer support for an arbitrary monoidal triangulated category satisfies the analogous property. This is shown by proving a version of the Chinese remainder theorem in this context, that is, giving a decomposition for a Verdier quotient of a monoidal triangulated category by an intersection of coprime thick tensor ideals.

Calum Hughes: An elementary theory of the 2-category of small categories

Lawvere’s Elementary Theory of the Category of Sets (ETCS) posits that the category Set is a well-pointed elementary topos with natural numbers object satisfying the axiom of choice. This provides a category theoretic foundation for mathematics which axiomatises the properties of function composition in contrast to Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory with the axiom of choice (ZFC), which axiomatises sets and their membership relation. Furthermore, ETCS augmented with the axiom schema of replacement can be shown to be equiconsistent with ZFC.

In this talk, I will present a categorification of ETCS which axiomatises the 2-category of small categories, functors and natural transformations; this is the elementary theory of the 2-category of small categories (ET2CSC) of the title. This extends Bourke’s characterisation of categories internal to a category E with pullbacks to the setting where E satisfies the extra properties of ETCS. Important 2-categorical definitions I will introduce are 2-well-pointedness, the full subobject classifier and the categorified axiom of choice. The main conclusion is that ET2CSC is 'Morita biequivalent’ with ETCS, meaning that the two theories have biequivalent 2-categories of models.

I will also describe how Shulman and Weber’s ideas on discrete opfibration classifiers can be used to incorporate replacement, in a way reminiscent of algebraic set theory.

Dave Benson: The nucleus and the singularity category of cochains on the classifying space

The definition of the nucleus was originally formulated in joint work with Carlson and Robinson, to capture the supports of modules with no cohomology. This definition works in various contexts such as finite groups, restricted Lie algebras, and more generally, suitable triangulated categories of modules. In the finite group context it has a characterization in terms of subgroups whose centralizer is not p-nilpotent. In the restricted Lie algebra context, it is described in terms of the Richardson orbit, at least for large primes. Recent work with Greenlees has highlighted a connection with the singularity category of the cochains on the classifying space, in the group theoretic context. My plan is to give an introduction to these ideas.